Back To Work
So I'm done with the second of three days here in Armonk. Day one (Monday) started at 2:45 PM, which was a very pleasant happening because it let me not get up at oh-dark-thirty to get down here. We did the same paperwork I've done three times before, did the stand in front of a wall and try not to blink thing for security, and were sent on our way until 5:00, at which point we were shuttled from the main building to IBM corporate HQ for a little tour. We arrived before our tourguide, and we had the most negative experience I have ever had while dealing with IBM personnel. The man at the front desk in the almost-very-nice suit with a tie that just missed pulling the whole thing together got very irritated that a bunch of new-hires would dare show up without a chaperone and then have the nerve to not be able to fully explain the situation to him. He also informed me when I turned on the billion-inch TV in the lobby, next to the chairs, that "everything was off for a reason" and that we should not touch "anything mechanical." I bit my tongue before I asked him how many gears he thought the TV had. Fortunately he stormed out shortly and we all watched the door close behind him before taking turns making jokes about whether or not the book on the table had too many moving parts to be read or if the chairs were turned for a reason, and then our guide showed up. It is important to stress that everyone else we encountered before and after said man in the lobby was incredibly friendly and helpful.
The tour was cool. A little long given how hungry I was but very interesting. We got to see a ton of old machines (some back from the 20s when IBM was still the Computing-Tabulation-Recording company -- I think I got that right) that they display around the place and that was quite interesting. We also looked down the hallway at the offices of the top four people at IBM, and got to walk around The Boardroom. The table in there was one of the most impressive and beautiful pieces of furniture I've ever seen. Not much else on the tour was terribly noteworthy for most of my limited readership, but I'm glad I took it. And then it was on to dinner.
The food here is great. Nothing is particularly amazing, but the quality has been at least of the "very good" quality and the two things have really impressed me. One, the variety and selection has been very impressive. Two, every time we have taken a break, the lobby outside our classroom is restocked with cookies, snacks, pretzels, soda, coffee, all the good stuff people in class all day would want. And nobody ever disapprovingly informs us that the food is intended for more important people.
As for the class, it's about what you would expect. Some good info, a little corporate cheerleading, the occasional team-building activity. The guy running it has done a pretty good job and was nice enough to speed up a couple of the more tedious spots so that's cool. Honestly my only gripes are -- shock! -- with a couple of the other participants but it's nothing major and I assure you I have kept it to myself. And I have come to enjoy being around several of them for meals and the like. Most people are pretty sociable so that's of course good.
After class today we got laptops. I was very pleased to see that they are T60s, so I can finally stop using my personal machine as a work machine. We then started in on initial workstation setup and familiarization, but seeing as how I'm putting Gentoo on it the minute I get back to the office (probably just copy everything off of the current machine and go from there since the hardware is the same) I was allowed to leave early, at which point I found out that my hotel key had deactivated itself but fortunately nothing more than a little trudging and a helpful guy at the front desk fixed that. My hotel room is nice, by the way. Not mindblowing but highly satisfactory.
That's about all I've got for orientation. I'm getting really excited to get back to the office and see what they're going to have me working on. I kind of hope it's not what I was doing before but I'd be okay if it was, and I really can't wait to see everyone again, especially John (Jon?), because not only is he the only person in Poughkeepsie who will really talk baseball with me (and Justin Verlander threw a no-hitter tonight), but he also used to hang glide and really wanted to hear about my experience in NC. He even said he might be convinced to go with me if I get into it up here. But everyone else is great too.
Alright this is more than long enough and I'm missing baseball highlights, so I'm gonna call it a wrap. I promise to get something about North Carolina up soon.
The tour was cool. A little long given how hungry I was but very interesting. We got to see a ton of old machines (some back from the 20s when IBM was still the Computing-Tabulation-Recording company -- I think I got that right) that they display around the place and that was quite interesting. We also looked down the hallway at the offices of the top four people at IBM, and got to walk around The Boardroom. The table in there was one of the most impressive and beautiful pieces of furniture I've ever seen. Not much else on the tour was terribly noteworthy for most of my limited readership, but I'm glad I took it. And then it was on to dinner.
The food here is great. Nothing is particularly amazing, but the quality has been at least of the "very good" quality and the two things have really impressed me. One, the variety and selection has been very impressive. Two, every time we have taken a break, the lobby outside our classroom is restocked with cookies, snacks, pretzels, soda, coffee, all the good stuff people in class all day would want. And nobody ever disapprovingly informs us that the food is intended for more important people.
As for the class, it's about what you would expect. Some good info, a little corporate cheerleading, the occasional team-building activity. The guy running it has done a pretty good job and was nice enough to speed up a couple of the more tedious spots so that's cool. Honestly my only gripes are -- shock! -- with a couple of the other participants but it's nothing major and I assure you I have kept it to myself. And I have come to enjoy being around several of them for meals and the like. Most people are pretty sociable so that's of course good.
After class today we got laptops. I was very pleased to see that they are T60s, so I can finally stop using my personal machine as a work machine. We then started in on initial workstation setup and familiarization, but seeing as how I'm putting Gentoo on it the minute I get back to the office (probably just copy everything off of the current machine and go from there since the hardware is the same) I was allowed to leave early, at which point I found out that my hotel key had deactivated itself but fortunately nothing more than a little trudging and a helpful guy at the front desk fixed that. My hotel room is nice, by the way. Not mindblowing but highly satisfactory.
That's about all I've got for orientation. I'm getting really excited to get back to the office and see what they're going to have me working on. I kind of hope it's not what I was doing before but I'd be okay if it was, and I really can't wait to see everyone again, especially John (Jon?), because not only is he the only person in Poughkeepsie who will really talk baseball with me (and Justin Verlander threw a no-hitter tonight), but he also used to hang glide and really wanted to hear about my experience in NC. He even said he might be convinced to go with me if I get into it up here. But everyone else is great too.
Alright this is more than long enough and I'm missing baseball highlights, so I'm gonna call it a wrap. I promise to get something about North Carolina up soon.
posted by SomeJerk at 10:39 PM
2 Comments:
...so, when can you get back to consensusbest.com? ;-)
Hehe, very funny, Greg. How's it going with cb by the way? They found any new work study kids to pick up where we left off?
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